George Pyle: Notes from a trip to the Northwest

I should have bought that book.

That’s often good advice. Especially so when you realize afterward that, had you purchased a copy of ”Astrophysics for People in a Hurry,” instead of just reading the first chapter or two in the coffee shop in the amazing Powell’s City of Books the week before in Portland, Ore., you would have a good excuse to approach its author a few days later when you happen across him in Boise, Idaho.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, who makes a living explaining such phenomena to the press and public, had informed the media that he was not to be disturbed during all the run-up to Monday’s solar eclipse. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going to go to see it. But the Friday before, we spied him in the breakfast buffet at a hotel in Boise, a good staging area for a viewing of a total eclipse not far away.

One review of his newest book described Tyson as “America’s most approachable astrophysicist.” And his image is certainly of a friendly guy who is happy to talk about the universe with anyone without lording his various advanced degrees over anyone.

But even such jovial fellows sometimes just want to eat their potatoes and eggs in peace. And, when he responded to another breakfaster’s, ”Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” with a rather gruff, ”I get that all the time,” I backed off and just stared at him from a polite distance.

His rumored presence in Idaho was reported that weekend by the local newspaper, The Idaho Statesman, in an article that quoted only a worker at a local ice cream parlor who was telling people Tyson had been in a couple of times and sampled the week’s special called — what else? — hot fudge eclipse.

The next big solar eclipse is expected in April of 2024. Maybe I’ll have another chance to run across America’s favorite scientist in, oh, I don’t know, Niagara Falls. Next time, I’ll buy the book.

If I had bought the book, neither the state of Oregon nor any of its jurisdictions would have charged any sales tax on it. There are no sales taxes there.

Which made us wonder how they paid for Portland’s extensive public transportation system, which we really enjoyed riding for the two days we had free. The one with trains they call MAX, cousin to Salt Lake City’s TRAX, with similar trains that carry more people over more miles and seems particularly welcoming to tourists.

The Utah version is funded in large part by local-option sales taxes that vary among the constituent counties. The ones that didn’t get increased the last time voters in Salt Lake County and a few other places were asked to kick in more for better bus route coverage.

Portland’s TriMet system levies an earnings tax, currently 0.7437 percent of an employee’s wages or of a self-employed person’s profits. Its board, with the permission of the Oregon Legislature, has the power to vote in such hikes on its own authority. No elections necessary.

All part of the image of Portland as a particularly progressive, if not downright enlightened, city. Public transit is thought important enough that it gets to raise its own revenue, and it uses a method that is just slightly more, well, progressive than a sales tax, which hits lower-income households the hardest.

It took me awhile to figure out why Portland’s MAX, and its attendant downtown streetcars, seemed more convenient than Salt Lake City’s TRAX. MAX isn’t cleaner or faster, though the trains come a lot more often during rush hours and it is a little cheaper, especially when any of your party is under 18.

Eventually it dawned on me that the appeal of MAX is not so much the trains themselves as the city they run in. Trains running over Salt Lake City’s wide boulevards, boulevards that are part of what makes the city so attractive, seem to loom over everything.

Trains moving through Portland’s much narrower streets, hard by and level with city sidewalks, feel more integrated, more natural to just step on and take off. And there is nothing the Utah Transit Authority can do to match that.

George Pyle, the Tribune’s editorial page editor, has happily ridden light rail and/or subway systems in New York City, London, Paris, Salt Lake City, Washington, Montreal, Portland, San Francisco, Buffalo and Disney World. It’s the only way to go. gpyle@sltrib.com